


Lie in the bed you made

by KuraiTsuky



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Introspection, No Dialogue, Other, Post-Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Reflection, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 06:28:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18805588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuraiTsuky/pseuds/KuraiTsuky
Summary: Darth Vader reflects on the love he had for his apprentice and the traitorous feelings Ahsoka’s death brings to his blackened heart. AU Set after the “twilight of the apprentice” in which Ahsoka is dead.





	Lie in the bed you made

Anakin would have mourned.

Vader breathes inside his new mask, his lungs still reeling from the strain of having to function with the respirator damaged. He eyes it, the imprint of Ahsoka’s sabre less obvious than the one on the mask, since it was it that took the brunt of her attack, but still visible.

Ahsoka.

For years, Vader has refused to even think her name. The name of the girl that abandoned him, that betrayed him. He has thought of the others, mainly when he was cutting them down, but he has made the effort all this years to push her from his mind. Because she was out, she left the Jedi behind, along with him and the sad, pathetic sliver of Skywalker he doesn’t seem to be able to get rid of, had hoped she would get away.

She would have had, if she’d run again. But Ahsoka only ran once and will never do so again. He doesn’t know for how long he stands there, looking at the gash in the durasteel as though it can offer any answer at all. He’s not usually this contemplative after ending a Jedi. Exultant from battle, and with that power that makes him feel alive and like himself even if only for a moment, Vader is normally too busy savouring his victory to even think of the life he took, just another name on his list, another face he will soon forget.

And yet she’s different, she had looked at him with something akin to pity not with the terror he expected or the despair he hoped for. Ahsoka had called him Anakin despite his new face and powers, in the end. Vader had wanted to deny it then, as he retracted his red blade from her chest, but somehow, somehow the words had remained lodged in his throat. After becoming Vader, he had hoped to find her, to show her the power of the dark side. He had imagined them ruling the Galaxy together, no matter how absurd the idea of Ashoka becoming a Sith was to him even then. Ahsoka, like Obi-Wan, had always been more the Order’s than she’d been his and now, like almost everything Anakin once had, she’s no more.

 He crushes what’s left of the respirator in one hand, and turns his back on the wounded mask that mocks him, and retreats to the relative comfort of his meditation chamber. Vader survived her abandoning him once, even if Anakin almost didn’t, this shouldn’t be any different.

Weak, sad Anakin, would have mourned. He doesn’t have a heart with which to do so anymore.

There is another name on his list, but hers is a face he won’t soon forget.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment, or don't, it's a free country <3


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